II

Archie laughed and cautiously twined his fingers into Veronica's, looking nervously into her eyes. There was a struggle in her face that had no reason to be there, as far as he could tell. Something wasn't right. Something about this whole evening wasn't right. There was an uncomfortable edge to Veronica's sexiness that made Archie feel like he was sitting there with a prostitute on her first night doing it for money. (He'd watched the scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts tells Richard Gere her tragic backstory… before his mom had noticed his seven-year-old self lurking in the doorway of the TV room.)

It was hard to say what was weirder though: Veronica laying on the sex appeal even thicker than usual, or seeing the persona he'd come to know as Veronica Lodge slowly peel back in ways he wasn't expecting. Archie wasn't sure when he'd become the guy who was more interested in the first, but it'd been that way for him since the previous summer. Miss Grundy had wanted him and Archie's head had been turned so fast, he'd never had a chance to figure out more about her until it got to the point that his friends had to do it for him because they thought he was in danger. It was a little different with Val―she was so awesome and they were both into music―but it took them breaking up (followed by the brutal rejection on Jughead's birthday) for Archie to see that he hadn't really known her at all. Cheryl was a mistake he easily could have made―that body, that confidence, that red, red mouth―if the fact that the girl was so obviously pure evil hadn't deterred him.

Veronica too had pulled him in dick first, but when Archie considered it, he felt they'd actually gotten a lot of the sexual tension out of the way with that first kiss in one of Thornhill's closets on the night of the dance. They'd established a friendship since then, but whenever Archie watched her, in person or in his mind's eye, she was never the same self he'd seen last. When it came down to it, he was certain he'd never know anyone as well as he knew Betty.

After the others he'd been with this year, Betty would be an emotional palate cleanser. It would be her because it was supposed to be her. Seeing her with Jughead was wrong. It was so clear to Archie. Why wasn't it clear to everyone? Oldest of friends! Girl next door!

But Betty wasn't waiting for him like she'd waited before, which had been enough to snap Archie out of it. He'd thought moving forward with Veronica would cement the idea that the image of him and Betty was only a fantasy. If he and Veronica broke up after this, she would be as ok with it as he would. She wasn't fragile and emotional like Betty.

Liar, liar, liar, he thought, watching her resistant brown eyes. He had to stop giving himself permission not to care by treating her like a cardboard cut-out instead of a person. Because really he did care. Veronica was there for him when Betty stopped texting, drifting down the Blossom case rabbit hole. When he needed Jughead to have his back, but he was off with Betty instead. When others didn't take his passion for music seriously and he had to face his own personal horror, stage fright, sitting behind that mic alone.

His hand tightened around hers and Veronica looked down at it.

She was like that Billy Joel song: frequently kind and suddenly cruel. She wasn't the fake Betty Archie had held in his mind for so long. She wasn't like the actual Betty Archie had to let go her own way. Veronica was real. She was real and she was here.

"I'd love to hear you play sometime."

Veronica tossed her hair over her shoulder.

"Sure, when our crime fighting careers are over." She tilted her head. "I wonder what Bruce Wayne did for a hobby."

Archie felt like a weight had been lifted and was enjoying just being near her exponentially more with every moment that passed. He laughed, his chest vibrating with the sound and the speed of his racing heart.

"You remind me of Bruce Wayne."

Veronica stared at him.

"Because I'm rich?"

Archie shook his head vehemently.

"No, because you help people when you don't have to. You show up for people. Betty, Cheryl, Ethel, Jughead…"

"Yeah, I know what a kindness he considers it that I broke and entered his dad's trailer."

"First of all, that was both of us. And second, he'll get over it. Jughead needs something to be pissed off about so he doesn't have to start buying his clothes in a colour other than black."

Veronica smiled but looked down. Archie felt his own smile slipping.

"What is it?"

"What about you, Archiekins? Have I ever shown up for you?"

Something in her tone was self-demeaning and Archie frowned.

"Of course you have. I look for your face every morning at school. I count on you without even realizing it." Archie's eyes scanned the room as he struggled to show her, to tell her. "You made my music a duet when it would have failed as a solo act. You've been my… my…"

"Groupie?"

"Muse. Definitely muse."

She smiled, replying in a teasing voice. "I know you mean it as a compliment, but I think being a muse is kind of a passive role for women since the muse generates the idea, then the creator, typically a man, gets all the―"

Archie leaned forward quickly and pressed his lips to Veronica's. Her mouth was warm and his felt comfortable against it, resting on her fuller bottom lip like a meandering Sunday walker on a park bench. He had kissed her so firmly, he couldn't tell if she was responding, so he pulled back.

"―credit," she finished.

Her eyelids flickered up and down and Archie looked down and grinned, mostly to himself, at the thought that Veronica was surprised by a kiss after they both knew she'd brought him to her bedroom for a lot more than that.

"You're wrong if you think you don't get any credit. You should try looking at the faces in the audience instead of through them the next time we perform together." Archie smiled at her. "They're always looking at you."

Veronica rolled her eyes and flopped straight back onto the bed.

"I hate to break it to you, Archiekins, but that's the influence of the Pussycat uniform, not my supressed musical talent."

Archie laughed and glanced down at her, trying to keep his gaze far from the hem of her nightgown, which had seemed slippery enough to expose her completely if she started shifting around.

"I can't deny that's probably part of it, but you're magnetic, Ronnie. Really."

"Yeah, the pole of the magnet that's the same as whatever everyone else's is around here. My mere presence is enough to force them away." She made a shooing gesture with her hand.

Archie laid back next to her, not quite letting their arms touch, though their hands were still tangled together. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye; she was staring at the ceiling, so he kept his head turned that way too.

"Not when you're singing."

The duvet rustled and Archie looked eagerly towards Veronica. Her back remained flat to the bed, but her legs were now curled up towards him and her face was turned to his. Her steady brown eyes were waiting. With the vibrant blue satin below her and her black hair spread out, Veronica looked weightless―as though she were suspended in water. And Archie was breathing, breathing shallowly, although he was drifting at the bottom of the ocean.